Mar 30 Wed ICI PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE REFUGEES INTO ITALY

Mar 30 Wed 6pm Italian Cultural Institute Park and 67St Reception for Paolo Pellegrin Mohamed Keita Photographers of Refugees Posted on March 23, 2016 by textgenie Two photographers who have recorded the agony of refugees who arrive by sea from Libya to Italy, one a refugee himself, in black and white photos upstairs (Pellegrin) and in color downstairs (Keita) in starkly realist and direct confrontation with the struggling crowds and battered solitary figures that made up a theme which attracted social movers and VIPs such as David Hochberg and John and Joan Robinson, the latter still thrilled at having Obama drop in to dinner, when he signed everything put in front of him and commented on John’s two remarkable hole-in-one trophies, saying he had never holed in one himself, to which John tactfully replied that he had never entertained a President to dinner either. A sad perspective on the frightening ordeal suffered by good people who were born into the wrong regime somewhere DESPERATE CROSSING 2016-03-30 Date:03/30/2016 Desperate Crossing The exhibition focuses on the dramatic journey of thousands of migrants fleeing from war, famine and poverty, desperately in search of a better future in Europe. The images come from two different and complementary “eyes”: that of Paolo Pellegrin, famous photojournalist, and a member of the prestigious Magnum agency, and that of Mohamed Keita, young and talented photographer. Paolo Pellegrin has documented this terrible “journey of hope” in a series of reportages, one of which published in September 2015 by the New York Times Magazine with the title “Desperate Crossing”. Mohamed Keita has, instead, a first-hand experience of it, being himsel a migrant. Pellegrin’s photographs show the terrible journey, while those of Keita are, in a way, the consequence of it. Escaped at the age of 14 from his country, Ivory Coast, to survive the civil war that had claimed his parents’s lives, Keita has wandered, for more than three years, on a journey around the African continent before embarking toward Italy. From Sicily, where he arrived, he then reached Rome, where he slept for four months at the Roma Termini Station. Through photography he has built part of his identity as a survivor, and managed to find a possible professional venue. His camera is often focused on those who, like him, are veterans of this harsh odyssey and are forced to live in perilous and inhumane conditions. The expert eye of Pellegrin finds, therefore, an ideal completion in young Keita’s perspective, against the background of a country – Italy – engaged in the difficult task of welcoming and integrating the overwhelming number of immigrants arriving every day along its shores. Information DA Wednesday, March 30, 2016 Al Thursday, April 28, 2016 At 6:00 pm Organized by : IIC Entrance : Free